Will Canada be ready for the next natural disaster?

ALBERTA FLOODING

During its heyday, before the economic downturn of 2009, about 1,000 people attended the annual World Conference on Disaster Management. They gathered in an Ontario city for four days, listened to speakers — academics and practitioners — asked questions, and learned new ideas in disaster management mitigation, planning and solutions.

During its heyday, before the economic downturn of 2009, about 1,000 people attended the annual World Conference on Disaster Management. They gathered in an Ontario city for four days, listened to speakers — academics and practitioners — asked questions, and learned new ideas in disaster management mitigation, planning and solutions.

But the number of participants has declined sharply — a 40 per cent drop since 2009.

Organizers knew training and conference budgets had been cut. Fair enough. But what did that really mean to those who attended the conference and their communities? What was the impact of reduced budgets on community resilience?

They conducted a survey and discovered some startling facts:

A majority of those who answered said climate change is a reality.

Seventy-five per cent are concerned/very concerned about the potential impact of extreme weather events on their organizations or communities.

More than half said their organization or community had made little or no effort to develop programs to mitigate the impact of climate change; almost the same percentage said there was little to no effort to start programs to adapt to its impact.

The survey results were both startling and worrisome, said Adrian Gordon, chair of the conference. "It says to me, without any doubt, that within the (community of) professionals and those who understand the risk of climate change, they don't know what to do and they don't have the funding to do anything. Where does that leave us? Not in a good place."

The UN-sponsored climate panel said in a recent report that Canada will continue to see more warming than the global average and extreme weather events will be more frequent and more intense.

Without mincing words, it said that most countries — including Canada — are not prepared.

More recently, a comprehensive report from the U.S. — the National Climate Assessment, released May 6 — said climate change is not a distant threat but a present-day danger that is already impacting lives, in some cases severely.

Instances of extreme weather events abound: the Alberta floods in June 2013, Toronto's floods in July 2013 and its recent ice storm. They are all indicators of a fast-changing climate, said John Smol, a researcher on environmental change at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.

The Alberta floods, considered the worst in Canada's history, cost more than $6 billion dollars, according to the province's finance minister. Before 1990, only three Canadian disasters exceeded $500 million. In the past decade alone, nine have surpassed that amount.

An Insurance Bureau of Canada report in 2012 said Canada now experiences 20 more days of rain compared to the 1950s.

In the same report, Gordon McBean of the Centre for Environment and Sustainability at Western University in London, Ont., said that, "In Canada, a recent spike in severe weather-related events — including severe rainstorms, tornadoes, flooding and forest fires — has resulted in social and economic consequences for individuals and governments across the country."

It's easy to blame the federal government but, in this case, Ottawa really is at the core of the problem, says Richard Kinchlea, chair of the Emergency Management and Public Safety Institute at Centennial College in Toronto.

"I think it's clear that Ottawa does not support climate change initiatives the way it should," he said in an interview. "Adaptation and mitigation efforts are not being supported the way the global community is asking. In fact, Ottawa is going the opposite direction and supporting pipelines and oilsands."

The conference survey clearly tells the story of what should be done, but isn't, he said.

"It has 469 responses, which is a high number. This is a very learned response. You really have to trust what is being said here that disaster management is at the bottom of our priorities."

Ottawa doesn't think so.

In an emailed statement, the Ministry of Public Safety told the Star that the government is shifting emphasis from a traditional response and recovery approach to a more proactive one. "This is not to say that we will not do response and recovery," said Jean Paul Duval, a ministry spokesperson.

Canada, he said, committed $200 million in 2014 for the development of a national disaster mitigation program; another $40 million will be spent over five years to support mitigation programming on reserves. The government has also committed $99.2 million to disaster mitigation following flooding in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec in 2011.

About this survey, Duval said the ministry "welcomes any study that contributes to the understanding of natural disasters and the risks we face."

In Toronto, Paul Kovacs, the executive director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, said it is tough not to panic after a survey that "says what we feared."

There is a strong sense of agreement among those questioned, he said. "They are clear, they are saying there is an issue right now and their work is being affected and will impact even more going into the future."

Conferences such as the World Disaster Management Conference are helpful because in an unpredictable, changing climate, "we need all the help we can to understand what is going on."

There is more reason than ever to get together and discuss "what we should learn from, say, the Calgary floods, or the ice storm," he said. "These events are a critical part of the process for the experts to come together and discuss and learn and improve understanding of how to manage these events."

But emergency management does not show a decent return on investment, Centennial's Kinchlea pointed out. "It's like insurance, you can pay and pay and if you never have a claim, what was it worth? Yes, the Lac-Mégantic derailment or Calgary floods show we need investment but really, for the most part, (we) can't know when these things will happen. When the decision-makers look to invest money, they do it in places where they can see a return."

Few seem to think disaster management is important enough to put money into, he said. "It is an unfortunate thing."

(The World Disaster Management Conference is from June 15 to 18 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre)

Torstar News Service

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(1) Comments

By veryoldguy|MAY 27, 2014 08:46 AM

How can Canadians feel confident when the Harper government doesn't even recognize that climate change is happening. I guess big oil and gas are more important to Steve.